Last night woke up from dreams several times. I had trouble getting up this morning because I kept falling back into dreams. But because I woke up late, I jumped into getting everything started and forgot my dreams. The good thing about the Lord giving us instruction through dreams is that we don’t actually have to know them or understand them or even remember them for the dream to fulfill its purpose in your life. The reason to keep up with them and try to understand them is closeness with God, understanding His ways and seeking Him. When you do that God can lift you up in all sorts of ways, but even if you don’t press into the dream life God’s purpose can still be sealed in you and fulfilled.
Today I want to look at Joshua 5 and where Jesus is in this book. It all speaks of Jesus but this section says something about Jesus that the church fights over still to this day. After Israel walks through the Jordan river on dry ground, just the way they walked through the Red Sea so that God could lift up Joshua as a leader, they were told to do something unusual. God told them to all be circumcised a second time! What is this second circumcision?
This is a prophecy of receiving the Holy Spirit and it is prophesied from beginning to end of the Bible. Moses two sons had an emergency circumcision on the way out of the wilderness, Jeremiah speaks of circumcising the hearts instead of the flesh, Paul fought against the pride of circumcision that was only in the flesh but not the Spirit. It was a sign of devotion to God in the heart and to only circumcise the body without the heart was unimportant to God. God always wanted the heart, and it was an emergency because it was a prophecy.
In Genesis a great flood washes away the sinful from the world, and in the New Testament a baptism of water begins washing away sins. But it wasn’t about the physical water, it was about the heart. In the prophecy of the end of the world God will baptize the entire earth with fire. John the Baptist said Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire. Paul said the Holy Spirit is the deposit that seals us for the day of redemption.
There will be early rains and latter rains. These double fulfillment prophesies are all through the Bible and they point to Jesus how? Because He is the first one who was baptized in the Holy Spirit, He told the apostles to be baptized in the Holy Spirit and He told the apostles to teach everyone the same things that He taught them including healing and miracles and baptizing in the Holy Spirit.
Today a second experience of being baptized in the Holy Spirit is a contentious issue in the church. Martyn Lloyd Jones in his book Revival says that in times of revival the Christians who fight against the revival are fighting over this issue. They don’t want people to believe the falsehood that Jesus and the Bible say is true. It’s an antichrist spirit in the church. The argument is that by saying we can be like Jesus and do what He did, we deny His deity. But the Bible says that the antichrist denies His flesh, not His deity. Hindus and New Agers are all fine with making Him deity just like the Cessationists.
That offends people. As a believer you don’t start out on day one perfect. The Apostle Paul said he still hadn’t made it, but he sure did keep trying. He healed the sick, he cast out demons, he performed miracles, he did everything that they argue against. So they say but he was an apostle. Are they now deifying apostles? Wasn’t he a man in the flesh empowered by the Holy Spirit? What about Philip the evangelist’s four daughters who prophesied? Were they deity because they prophesied? Of course not, so they say the Bible is not the deity because it all stopped once there was a Bible. But Jesus said the scriptures don’t save you if you don’t come to Him.
These arguments are all very stupid, but the devil isn’t the smartest cookie. Doctrines of demons come in many shapes, some trick people into doing yoga at church, some trick people into believing being controlling and unloving, and some trick people into denying the flesh of Jesus and really thinking they are protecting the gospel. But there’s a lot of history that says this is the idea that will come against revival from inside the church.
Be of good cheer because you know what they means? It means we are in a time of great revival! I pray you would all come to a saving knowledge of the truth! I pray you would all be filled with the Holy Spirit! Today’s reading was Joshua 1-14, I’d love for you to read along. May the Lord reveal His son on every page of the Bible and in your own life and may God bless all y’all.
Practice Outlaw 